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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Sep 14, 2017 - 11:52am PT
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Do a GOOGLE search on "The Downwinders" and you will find information on the Nevada Nuclear tests and those who were downwind. One lady said that so many in her HS graduation class were dying in their late 50's and early sixties. These huge clouds of radioactive dust used to envelope her High School.
John Wayne did a movie out there when there were some tests and a huge number of the actors and crew died of cancer.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Sep 14, 2017 - 11:58am PT
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Believe it or not, some of the nuke tests were for peaceful reasons...
Peaceful Nuclear Explosions(Updated July 2010)
The USA and Russia have investigated and trialled the use of nuclear explosions for civil engineering purposes, though only one significant construction resulted: a dam in Kazakhstan.
Russia has used nuclear explosions to extinguish major gas well fires.
Some 150 experiments spanned 1957-75 in the USA and 1965-89 in the USSR.
PNEs will be banned under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty when it enters into force.
Following the military use of nuclear weapons in August 1945, attention turned to harnessing nuclear power in a more controlled manner for electricity generation. However, at the same time there was considerable investigation and testing of peaceful nuclear explosions (PNE) by both the USA and USSR.From the outset it was realized that thermonuclear blasts (as distinct from fission) would have the least potential for radioactive fallout. However, along with early weapons tests, some PNE tests did contribute to atmospheric radioactivity, and some test sites now pose a radiological hazard.Applications of PNEsPossible applications for peaceful nuclear explosions include:
Large-scale excavation to create reservoirs, canals and ports.
Stimulating oil and gas recovery.
Creating cavities for underground oil, gas or waste storage.
Extinguishing gas field fires.
Space propulsion.
Interception of potentially dangerous Near Earth Objects (asteroids, etc).
Recovering oil from oil shale.
Energy production via molten fluorides underground producing steam for electricity.
Breaking up copper and phosphate ore preparatory to mining.
Of these, the first four have been tested (and even applied in some cases by the USSR) while the remaining five have been investigated but not tested.A total of 151 PNE experiments have been carried out by both the USA (27) and the USSR (124 plus 32 tests that helped develop explosive devices used in PNEs). No other country has ever carried out a PNE testa and there are currently no moves towards a resumption of tests.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/industry/peaceful-nuclear-explosions.aspx
If you're interested in the history of nuke testing from Trinity to China's 1st nuke test in 1964, I highly recommend the documentary film "Trinity and Beyond"
Here are a few excerpts from the film...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
China's 1st nuke test
[Click to View YouTube Video]
FYI, seismic records of N Korea's 6 nuke tests from the same seismic station in Norway...
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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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Sep 14, 2017 - 12:16pm PT
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^^^
Trinity and beyond is an amazing documentary. Highly recommended.
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Sep 14, 2017 - 12:50pm PT
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TT,
The two tests in Colorado and one in New Mexico were part of the Plowshares Program (peaceful uses of nuclear explosions). The idea was to use nuclear explosions to fracture tight gas formations. It worked but the produced gas was too radioactive to sell to the public. The second test in New Mexico was to try to use the resulting melted salt as a heat sink for later use in producing electricity (that test was in some of the large salt formations in southern N.M.). The Project Shoal test in the Sand Springs Range in NV was to characterize the seismic signal from a test placed in granite, as a way to refine our test detection protocols for monitoring underground tests in the USSR and China. The two tests in Mississippi were placed in salt diapirs for test verification purposes as well. The idea was to make a test cavern with the first test, then suspend the "device" from a cable within that first cavity and see if the seismic signal from the second test was attenuated. It was. We had been suspecting the Russians of doing just this very thing to mask the yield of some of their tests. Finally, the Sedan test in Yucca Flat was used to test nuclear explosions for earth moving and construction purposes, like building a second canal across Central America. They decided this was not a good idea when massive amounts of radioactive fallout occurred surrounding the resulting "excavation". The Sedan crater remains both the largest crater on the Nevada Test Site as well as the hottest. I was actually stunned to find journal articles in rather obscure scientific journals that discussed the use of nuclear explosions for mining purposes, and for civil engineering purposes, although these articles predated the actual tests that would disprove the concept. Imagine nuclear fracking for tight gas and then being surprised that the resulting gas was radioactive.
About those poor folks down wind in the St George Utah area; they actually timed the atmospheric tests to coincide with winds blowing the fallout in any direction away from Las Vegas. The AEC, and later the NRC never owed up to their responsibilities to those residents in Utah. One has to believe that actions like this are one of the root causes of various militia movements that simply do not trust the Federal government.
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2017 - 01:14pm PT
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Werner is slaying TOUGH on this thread!!
Actually the real purpose of this thread is to see how many times Werner says "stoopid".
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Sep 14, 2017 - 01:30pm PT
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Nick Danger: very interesting. Thanks for that info. I didn't know about the salt diapir cavity tests in Mississippi.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Sep 14, 2017 - 02:17pm PT
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FYI:
There are millions of asteroids in orbits around the sun. An estimated 14,000 are classified as Near Earth Objects (NEOs) by the criterion that their orbits bring them within 1.3 astronomical units (AUs) of the sun.
Considering the frequency with which meteors encounter Earth’s atmosphere (about 20 reported so far this year, and well over 700 since 1988), all populations of the world need to be concerned about any NEO larger than 100 meters in diameter becoming a catastrophic collision or atmospheric explosion. One particular NEO is an asteroid named Égaré (French for 'stray'). Égaré is indeed 100 meters in diameter and its impact could destroy a city the size of Paris. Depending on its impact location, it could cause massive tsunamis, multiple firestorms and an impact winter created by the sunlight-blocking effect of placing large quantities of pulverized rock dust, and other debris, into the stratosphere. Telescopic observations made before the summer of 2018 and the mathematics of orbital mechanics predict its possible collision with Earth at an orbital intersection on Thursday July 21, 2022. So it seems an effort to delay or prevent its arrival -- however challenging -- would be worth the effort. Right?
Every few years we read about an astronomical near miss, usually after the fact And the reports always mention that not all the asteroids have yet been identified. So a sneaky pop-up asteroid intersecting Earth’s orbit with little warning when Earth happens to be at the intersection point has an estimated probability that is not reassuring. While the chances of a major collision are not great in the near term, there is a high probability that one will happen eventually unless defensive actions are taken. Long term identification and deflection is not 100% effective, so are there other countermeasures?
A number of methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) destructive impacts could be diverted have been studied. Probably the most studied is the use of a nuclear explosion to change an asteroid's velocity. A change of 10 meters/second (plus or minus 20%) would be adequate to push it out of an Earth-impacting orbit.
A nuclear explosion that changes an asteroid's velocity by 10 meters/second (plus or minus 20%) would be adequate to push it out of an Earth-impacting orbit. Nuclear explosive devices, kinetic impact by high mass objects, asteroid gravity tractors, ion beams, focused solar energy, mass drivers, rocket engines, and laser ablation are a few of many proposed means of avoiding a collision.
An impact occurs when both reach the same point in space at the same time, or more correctly when some point on Earth's surface intersects the impactor's orbit when the impactor arrives. Since the Earth is approximately 12,750 km in diameter and moves at approx. 30 km per second in its orbit, it travels a distance of one planetary diameter in about 425 seconds, or slightly over seven minutes. Delaying, or advancing the impactor's arrival by times of this magnitude can, depending on the exact geometry of the impact, cause it to miss the Earth.
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane of the orbiting object.
For a satellite orbiting the Earth directly above the equator, the plane of the satellite's (co-planar) orbit is the same as the Earth's (reference plane) equatorial plane, and the satellite's orbital inclination is 0°. The general case is that the satellite's orbit is tilted (non-co-planar); it spends half an orbit over the northern hemisphere and half over the southern. If the orbit swung between 20° north latitude and 20° south latitude, then its orbital inclination would be 20°.
So … any non-co-planar asteroid orbit with non-zero orbital inclination has a very limited possibility of colliding with Earth. In fact, it must satisfy the following condition: Its latus rectum (“it” being an ellipse) must equal the diameter of the Earth’s orbit (assumed circular). This is according to deductions made by my old college buddy from UCLA, Paul Niquette, who now resides in a small French village and spends all his time pondering this stuff. He is currently writing a paper for submittal to NASA and ESA suggesting an alternative method of NEO impact avoidance.
There, now don’t you feel better?
References: Wikipedia.org, niquette.com
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Sep 14, 2017 - 02:53pm PT
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The human race is on a trajectory to destroy life on this planet long before the next extraterrestrial impact.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 14, 2017 - 07:22pm PT
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But was the first test in May or July?
Jornada del Muerto
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Sep 14, 2017 - 10:44pm PT
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Actually the real purpose of this thread is to see how many times Werner says "stoopid"
Please, no more stoopid, I'm running out of beer!
The end (of the beer) is near. Look busy.
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 14, 2017 - 11:35pm PT
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back to the three
2) Kim Jong un is a threat, but according to Bill Clinton a few years ago, the threat was removed.
1) Barrack Hussein Obama however ignored steady progression in test frequency and capability, zip, zero, no action with China, no UN Security Council unanimous vote like Trump did get passed with China backing the action.
but wait threat 3, not asteroids, Iran got a couple billion, to sponsor more nukes, from guess who?
The guy you should really give credit for the threat, because he funded it, Barrack Hussein Obama. As much of an objectionable jerk as Trump is, i do not recall him giving money to those who seek to kill us.
Obama, did exactly that.
Two out of three, are the legacy of Barrack Hussein Obama.
So when a nuke goes off in Japan, or Iran, do not blame Trump, give credit where it is due.
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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Sep 14, 2017 - 11:38pm PT
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Wow, Barack Obama's middle name was Hussein. Thanks for pointing that out, Ed. It made your argument all the more compelling. And revealing.
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 14, 2017 - 11:49pm PT
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Crankster, you .. oh wait, you edited,
to a less caustic jab, but you said nothing about the issue.
but still...
It is his name.
And he very clearly is an anti Semite.
Bibi Netanyahu repeatedly asked for a meeting with Obama, as a head of State of a friendly nation,
the President of the United States is obligated to meet with him. Obama refused. repeatedly through diplomatic channels.
Netanyahu then came to Washington DC while Obama was in town, to situationally obligate him to meet. A request for a meeting was sent, Obama refused, saying his schedule was booked, no time to meet. two days later Obama went golfing for 5 hours.
Netanyahu went home, and began arrangements for an address of a joint session of congress and the senate. When the address was given, it was right on,
and the white house reaction was he should have met with the President.
Meanwhile, because Obama let the North Korean program go unchecked for 8 years, we are at the brink of war, in the last 20 hours they flew another ICBM over Japan. no mater which way our fingers are pointing, we are on the brink of mayhem not seen since Nagasaki.
Kim is nuts, and no outcome foreseeable now is anything but ugly... it is real and sobering. because Kim could launch and land a nike, Hilo? LA? what the US govt has not told you, is Alaska, where the Anti ICBM rockets are, only has 20 units. so if you fire three to be sure to get the first one, how many more ICBMs?? or he could just drive one over to Seoul.. there are thousands of options... and the whole stew is getting worse.
so i think we can agree, the threat is real, and no outcome is good. sobering to think it is a real possibility Seoul, or LA could have millions incinerated.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Sep 15, 2017 - 10:38am PT
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What is the real aim of the brinksmanship?
Is the N. Korean leadership just crazy? Are the Chinese leaders also crazy? Are our leaders crazy?
I think they are not crazy. I think they are focused on what they perceive as survival.
They may not reject the label of unpredictability and crazy, because that also means un-forecast-able, which has proven to be the case. This element tends to stay the hand, because "who knows what a crazy person may do?"
But in any case, I don't believe that ANY outcome with N. Korea represents a threat to the species.
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Loose Rocks
Trad climber
Santa Rosa, CA
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Sep 15, 2017 - 11:16am PT
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“I think they are not crazy. I think they are focused on what they perceive as survival.”
This is likely his want/need. Kim and his regime and therefore his people believe that they’ve been at war all their lives. Kim himself grew up under the previous Kim. I can imagine that his view of the world given that he was thought what survival means through the eyes of his father. They’ve been taught all their lives that their very survival depends on the strength of their military. He probably thinks that if he could reach out and touch a couple of dozen of US’s most populous cities with 10 MTons of force he would be left alone. He is of course correct.
It’s hard to take ones shoes off and done the boots of another. The most dangerous weapon is indeed the point of view gun.
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Nuglet
Trad climber
Orange Murica!
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Sep 15, 2017 - 11:27am PT
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4. people keep reproducing
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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Sep 15, 2017 - 12:05pm PT
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^^someone finally threw the KO punch!
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